I believe that the ascending bullish lows represent the notion that the underlying long term trend is consistent with the January-March trend, e.g. doubling every 30 days. This notion is unsustainable.
I believe that the descending bearish highs represent the bubble collapse. Bubble theory says that typical bubbles give back all their speculative gains.
Perhaps one month from the April 10 peak at $266 is long enough for the predominant trader sentiment to shift to the fact that the waves of new buyers are diminishing, causing demand to likewise diminish, causing prices to likewise diminish.
Sorry to dig up a slightly older post (posted earlier today, already 4 pages in o_O), but this is a pet peeve of mine:
No, the "January-March trend [...] doubling every 30 days" is not per se, as you say, "unsustainable". What you're doing there is repeating the worn-out mantra "exponential growth is not sustainable". Unless of course when it is,
either in finance, or
in nature[1].
What you probably should have said would have been something like: "a given exponential growth function, causally connected (however losely) to something of finite quantity, will eventually reach a point at which it drastically outgrows said finite quantity".
This is not just some empty semantic nitpicking. The difference in wording here amounts to the difference between lazy repetition of half-understood claims about the world, and a meaningful statement about the sustainability of growth.
Please note: I am not making any claims about the correctness of the January trendline. I just refuse to let a lazy statement like that slide by, that at face value claims that exponential growth is somehow an oddity, and its usage as a way to model reality ought to be rejected.
If you think that a particular exponential trend is not accurate, present your arguments (for fairness sake, in other threads you have been doing that. Sort of.). But the statement as it stands, in its unconditional form, is not fundamentally different from a perma-bull's battle cry "We'll inevitably reach 300k USD/btc next week". Both claims are devoid of information.
* * *
[1] A common rebuttal to the Apple case is "But now the price comes crashing down! So exponential growth is unsustainable after all". The fallacy here is of course that just because at a certain point exponential growth of a given magnitude must end, does not imply that up to that point the growth was not accurately described by a particular exponential function.
Respectfully, it is surprising to me that with your attention to semantics you missed the distinguishing point that I made.
Of course I take for granted that doubling of bitcoin price every 30 days is not something that can go on forever,
The market has already demonstrated that the January to March trendline was not sustainable - the crash from $266 fell right through it. One must have numerical blinders on not to recognize bitcoin prices cannot double every thirty days indefinitely.
Exponential bitcoin growth is happening now at perhaps 4-5x annually when measured according to the prominent lows of bitcoin prices at Mt.Gox 2011 to present.
What I actually said was that the
notion is unsustainable. If bitcoin stops going up, then obviously the notion, i.e. belief that it will keep doublling upwards every 30 days, becomes less prevalent - right?
